By Dharani Balasubramaniam

Copyright timesnownews

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Govt has decided to file a review petition against the Supreme Court’s recent judgement that mandates all in-service teachers without the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) qualification to clear it within two years or face compulsory retirement On September 1, in its judgement in Anjuman Ishaat-e-Talim Trust vs State of Maharashtra & Others, the SC directed that all in-service teachers who do not possess the TET qualification must acquire it within two years. If they fail to do so, they would face compulsory retirement with terminal benefits. Teachers with less than five years of service remaining have been allowed to continue till retirement, but without eligibility for promotion. Tamil Nadu School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi in a statement has said that while TET should remain a compulsory requirement for future appointments, the retrospective application of this requirement to teachers who were already in service has created a grave concern. “Thousands of teachers were recruited in full compliance with the laws, rules and procedures in force at the time of their appointment. To now impose a new qualification on them decades later, and compulsorily retire them, if they do not qualify is neither fair nor sustainable,” Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi’s statement read. The state feels that if the SC judgement is implemented in its present form, it will lead to mass compulsory retirements, leaving schools across Tamil Nadu with crippling teacher shortages. “It will be practically impossible to recruit or train an equivalent number of TET-qualified teachers in the short timeframe provided”. The Review petition by the state will be primarily based on three arguments: The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) under Section 23 regulates minimum qualifications only for new appointments. It does not authorize compulsory retirement of teachers already in service.The NCTE Notification dated 23 August 2010 – which first introduced TET – clearly stated that its provisions would not apply to teachers already appointed prior to that date.Retrospective application of TET unsettles vested rights of lawfully appointed teachers, causes disproportionate hardship and threatens the stability of the education system.